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My work addresses the methodological challenge of investigating everyday practices. The singularities of this kind of research have been tackled in human geography by ‘non-representational’ (Thrift HIIg) or ‘more-than-‘non-representational’ (Lorimer HII[) theory.

Lorimer (HII[, gX) suggests that the works that can be considered under this umbrella aim to explore certain kind of phenomena that ‘may seem remarkable only by their apparent insignificance’. This concurs with first feelings about researching everyday walking practices: What could I say about people walking?

Lorimer sustains that the focus of these academic works is directed towards the ‘more excessive and transient aspects of living’ (gP). In this way, non-representational theory emerges as a reaction within a context of social constructivism in which the body and cultural aspects were usually researched as ‘endless representations in various media as if it were a text’ (Vannini HI"[, J). It focused on social phenomena that would not generate necessarily ‘a text’ or a coherent ‘discourse’. Therefore, it does not propose a theoretical fight against representation, as the name could suggest. It rather acknowledges the limitations of research techniques based on the analysis of representations to deal with certain subjects, such as everyday life, that exceed representation. Indeed, Nigel Thrift (HIIg, ""H) suggests that it is a style of work instead of a theory:

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I have pointed to the uses of an alternative ‘non-representational’ style of work.

Note that I use the word ‘style’ deliberately: this is not a new theoretical edifice that is being constructed, but a means of valuing and working with everyday practical activities as they occur. It follows that this style of work is both anti-cognitivist and, by extension, anti-elitist since it is trying to counter the still-prevalent tendency to consider life from the point of view of individual agents who generate action by instead weaving a poetic of the common practices and skills which produce people, selves, and worlds.

It is, therefore, a research style that puts attention on the lived experience of everyday life:

the very moment when practices are performed and what is generated through the entanglements of bodies and their environments.

Vannini (HI"[) explains that some research subjects feature better in non-representational research. Among them he mentions: ‘events’, ‘relations’, ‘doings’, ‘affective resonances’ and

‘backgrounds’. My ethnographic work on walking includes many of these aspects. I explore an everyday practice that creates a relationship between people and the environment, emerging affectivities, sensory engagement with places, bodily expressiveness (rhythm and attention), and so on. In that sense, my research enters into the non-representational’s research universe. Vannini notices that non-representational research comprises the type of subjects of study as well as a methodological looking for innovation and—as is sometimes forgotten—an effort in the style through which we communicate our experiences and findings in the fieldwork.

It is worthwhile to note that non-representational researchers are not against the possibility of representing the world through words. In that sense, I agree with Ingold (HI"[a, ix) who says that the problem is not necessarily that words cannot transmit certain experiences or cannot help to make sense of certain lived experiences, instead it is the way we use words particularly in the academy—lacking textures and flavours, not corresponding to the liveliness of the practices we research—which limits, even more, our capacities for exploring certain phenomena of social life, or in his own words: ‘To meet the

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world with words’. In this thesis, the work of writing about pedestrian experiences as a representational task which will only partially communicate how it is to walk in Santiago.

Indeed, I concur with John-David Dewsbury (HIIP, "J"") when he says: ‘The nonrepresentational argument comes into its own in asking us to revisit the performative space of representation in a manner that is more attuned to its fragile constitution’. In other words, non-representational theory invites us to embrace in creative ways the limitations of our investigative tasks.

I do not define my research as non-representational, neither do I define my ethnography as such (see Vannini HI"X). However, I draw inspiration from this frame of work to think about my research techniques: How to be present in the moment of the walks and how to use means different from words to grasp senses and perceptions that seem to escape the words of my own research participants who live them? I focused on investigating the experience of walking by deploying ethnography to be able to participate in practitioners’

experiences and resorting, as well, to a series of techniques based on audio-visual registers and visual images of walkers’ experiences to create a back-and-forth process of reflection through elicitation. In that way, we could reflect and recall what research participants experienced during their walks. Through the use of video-elicitation, montage-elicitation and collages, in what I call the ‘interview-workshop’, I contribute to the exploration of new ways of investigating everyday practices of movement that emphasise inviting participants to reflect on their own experiences.

It is in the process of writing that my thesis takes more distance from the non-representational project. The way we communicate our learning from fieldwork, is one aspect non-representational theory challenges. My analysis and the way the next empirical chapters develop are oriented towards transmitting walkers’ stories and my own story of fieldwork, rather than picturing the ultimate truth about how people walk the unequal

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city of Santiago. In that sense, I meet the spirit of ‘nonrepresentational thinking [that]

tends toward an academic style which seeks to describe and present rather than diagnose and represent’ (Cadman HIIJ, Xc"). I emphasise stories and partial insights. I transmit what I could make sense of from participants’ experiences, instead of analysing participant’s discourses. However, my style of writing is timid in terms of experimenting with more radical ways of making words ‘as lively and mobile as the practices to which they correspond’ (Ingold HI"[a, ix). I could not play much with language firstly due to my condition of being a non-native English speaker/writer which limits my use of words;

secondly, writing a thesis which intends to prove my suitability to be part of an academic community also restricted my freedom for experimenting with ways of analysing and communicating walkers’ lived experiences. However, I tried to make use of the images I produced during the fieldwork—which prompted many of the reflections of research participants—not only for illustrative purposes, but also as a way of emphasising certain aspects of my arguments.